68 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



" Don't let him quiz you that on mishap, gentlemen, 

 older hunters than you have fared as badly. Did you 

 ever hear of my blunder in fire hunting ?" 



Of course we had not. 



"Then I'U tell it to you." 



JACKSON'S STOKY OF A FIRE HUNT.* 



" It came about this way. I was up country looking 

 around for a good two-year-old to run ' at Charleston 

 races, when I met my old comrade, Stockton. We had 

 been chums together at Princeton, as thick as two cats 

 in a bag, sometimes studying, sometimes courting, and 

 then we were good friends. When we had nothing else to 

 do we quarrelled ; it is a sure sign of a good friend when 

 he loves you enough to quarrel with you. Strangers don't 

 care a picayune, and won't quarrel about you any way. 

 Stockton had settled down to a sober life, owned a pew 

 in the church, and as many little carroty-haired tokens 

 as you could stand up endwise in a ten acre lot. I was 

 well about the same sort of fellow as when a boy, only 

 the devil had covered me up with his wicked ways. 



" The first thing after seeing Stockton, that was pro- 

 posed, was a fire hunt, and a fire hunt it was. Dark 

 still night you could hear a peeper squeak a mile off, and 

 run your nose against a cotton bale without seeing it. 

 * Just the night,' said Stockton ; ' Just the night,' says I. 



* For this tale, I am indebted to the graceful pen of my friend, 

 Guillermo. 



